Amazon Synod idols cast in River Tiber today

  • Thread starter Thread starter IanM
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, the connection would be St Francis of Assisi. This is the Canticle.This meeting was October 4 th, St Francis’ day.
My only intention was to bring the Cathecism as a reliable source that mother earth belonged in our tradition too and it wasn t solely “ Mother Earth” hippie style if you know what I mean.
Also , in all honesty, we cannot know how each of these persons is living the faith nor any much really about each of them. The sign of the cross they made is an indication that they ve been introduced to Jesus …
I was reminded of how we hold our childrens’ little fingers before they could even speak.
That was about it I meant with the passage.
God bless you Crusader. And all the best with your work
 
You’re only redirecting one form of idolatry towards another. Just because people don’t engage in the mass paganism of the polytheistic Ancient Near East , doesn’t mean that the little wooden idols of the Amazonians are somehow socially acceptable in the 21st century because people are more “woke” to environmental issues.
 
Again I disagree. There is no mother earth. I don’t see depictions of sister earth or brother sun, or cousin tree or father water anywhere in Scripture or in our Traditions or churches.

I don’t hear homilies telling me that I need to be mindful and say thank you to brother sun for shining his warmth on me and blessing me with another glorious day.

I don’t subscribe to that language and unfortunately it’s only served to be used in a misguided attempt to convince me that Pachamama glorification is a good thing simply because we need to respect this Amazonian belief or we’re being culturally insensitive.

And we can’t compromise our beliefs to foster ecumenical dialogue. There are numerous non-Catholic religions that reference Jesus and even consider him God, but I’m not going to compromise my belief on the Trinity because I want to break bread with the Oneness Pentecostals. I don’t want the Book of Mormon placed at the pews because doing so will show that we’re open minded and humble.
 
Last edited:
Fine let’s see how far you will take it.

Tomorrow the Pope says the Church is going to ordain women priests, allow married priest, and allow same sex marriage, do you assent to magisterium or do you defend the deposits of faith.

I don’t want to hear well… It will never happen because this or that… Answer the question please?

[/quote]

Before Jesus came to Jeruselum there may have been the same ‘what if’ game played by the Jews. What if the Messiah came and He hung around with prostitutes and sinners. What if the Messiah came and He said it was ok to work on the Sabbath. What if the Messiah came didn’t wash properly before He ate.

I cannot predict the ways of the Holy Spirit either. There are so many instances where the Church has developed in ways that could never have been predicted and it is simply pride that believes that we know what surprises God has for us in the future. Whatever happens, I am a faithful daughter of the Church with absolute trust in the Holy Spirit.
 
Last edited:
Sad, calling on others to fight ones battles
 
Last edited:
What can I say except that I am a faithful daughter of the Church. In the words of St Ignatius Loyola “What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.”

That is the Catholic that I was born, grew with and am today.
 
If we cannot validate a source as the Cathecism, Popes after Vatican II ( because you mentioned it), and St Francis of Assisi , it is very difficult at least for me to continue.
Each and every person in Amazonia is exactly the same in God’s eyes that you or me. When we say Our Father, we mean it…
One cannot drag a person from A to B, at best we can walk beside each other and respect processes and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Continuous conversion of the heart is a process, lifelong .
I do not mind that we may disagree but please let it be clear that I cited our Cathecism , two Saints one of them a recent Pope,along this thread ,and not just any news outlet.
We can leave it at that. No problem.
 
Last edited:
Blimp said:
40.png
Emeraldlady:
Before Jesus came to Jeruselum there may have been the same ‘what if’ game played by the Jews.
Click to expand...
No. This is a mistake, you are talking about the Savior, for goodness sake — you can’t bring relativism into every element of life, especially faith. And especially when talking about Our Lord.

Jesus made it clear that he was the Messiah, it was a different matter. Here we have a clearly pagan element, with which a part of the Church simply cannot accept, because - let us not deceive ourselves - it does not look like the action of the Holy Spirit (as evidenced by the fears and protests of parts of the Church, for example).

The way you try to defend these statues sounds like you are trying to say: “Jesus was not received by the Jews either, now we Catholics must receive the pagan goddess-like statues of the Amazon.” I’m sorry, but that’s the way it sounds.
Click to expand...
I’m old enough to have been through it all before through Pope St John Paul II’s pontificate. It was during his time there was a landslide of sedavacatism. And yet still today, I follow and believe in the authority of St JPIIs teaching and guidance. I do note that the dissenters are now dismissing even StJPII as a bad teacher. Very strange and anti Catholic.
 
I really truly do respect your answers and I understand where you’re coming from.

I just worry that some people of that mindset have a misplaced blind faith without understanding the context that errors and heresies can take place in the Church even in modern times.

Yes the Church will never be destroyed, yes the Holy Spirit does in fact protect the Church, but that’s not to say the Church has not gone through darkness, has not gone through heresies, or that it will not go through darkness or heresy ever again.

The Church is Christological She’s going to go through a passion, she’s going to in a sense die, and she will be resurrected stronger more glorified than ever.

This final event will not take place until the time of the Antichrist but we have types of this future event throughout Church history even within modern times.
[/quote]

And I can respect that your fears are very real to you but would also put forward that there is an equally unfortunate tradition in the Church’s history of wolves coming in sheeps clothing. We look back on heresies with the benefit of knowledge and history to know the heretics, forgetting that they were so influencial because of their prominence as orthodox churchmen.

There is no real guarantee that someone who appears to be more ‘orthodox’ for some reason, is in fact a voice of Truth. Antichrist we are warned will come in such a guise. This is why I have faith, hope and trust in the only organism that is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit… the papal magisterium.
 
To make a point I’ll talk of Pelagius. Did you know that he was a highly educated and respected theologian? He was a spiritual director to the clergy and well regarded by Augustine of Hippo. He was one of the rigourous ascetics of his time which gave him solid credibility as a very holy person and St Augustine is credited with referring to him as a ‘saintly man’.

His next turn was into teaching a rigid moralism and a theory of man controlling his way of salvation on his own. The story progresses in a predictable way as far as Church history is concerned but the point is that Pelagius was not a radical liberal but a truly orthodox seeming Christian with sound objections to the Church teaching at the time.

All of these histories play into the faith lives of today’s Catholics. There is no path protected by the Holy Spirit that contradicts the Magisterium. That’s just that.
 
Crusader13 said:
Their spirituality is malformed. If we are to illuminate them as to the truth of Christ, then we start by removing all of their stumbling blocks, including their belief in an environmental deity which has no power or positive attributes.
Click to expand...
We ought to take care not to assume that we know the Amazonian people. On what basis does your certitude rest that their “spirituality is malformed”? Have you partaken of their culture? Have you spoken to anyone who has lived it? It’s understandable there is much confusion among faithful Catholics about the manners and customs of the Amazonian witness through the synod, but our response ought to be measured with patience, humility, and compassion in the face of the unknown.

Christ encounters us as we are, whatever state in life that may be, and, since he humbled himself by being born a man to a women, he’s capable of transfiguring the good in all of us, however that may manifest, and cleansing us of our impurities. It’s a lifelong journey we all participate in through different cultures in time, and so we should be cautious in our judgment of where we perceive others are in their journey, lest we mistake piety for irreverence.
 
Last edited:
rom said:
However, I’ve also seen at least one website where it was suggested that the figure of the pregnant woman represented the Virgin Mary.
Click to expand...
According to Rome Reports, Fr. Roberto Rojas, the missionary responsible for organizing the ceremony at the Vatican at the start of the synod, has said the statues represent Our Lady of the Amazon:
This figure is the Virgin Mary of the Amazon, Our Lady of the Amazon. It’s a devotion that started in the indigenous communities. They carved in wood an image of a Blessed Mother, who is pregnant. She is the Virgin Mary, and we have called her Our Lady of the Amazon.
Click to expand...
He goes on further to say, regarding the symbolism,
One of the things that we have to understand with this sculpture is that it is a nice symbol to understand that God, who is both father and mother, gives us the Amazon, not only for a group or for a country; it is for the world.
Click to expand...
 
Emeraldlady said:
All of these histories play into the faith lives of today’s Catholics. There is no path protected by the Holy Spirit that contradicts the Magisterium. That’s just that.
Click to expand...
All the contradictions seem to be trickling from those who think anything the pope does, allows, condones, or says, is the Catholic magisterium. That attitude in itself contradicts the magisterium.
 
Last edited:
RogueSemicolon said:
According to Rome Reports , Fr. Roberto Rojas, the missionary responsible for organizing the ceremony at the Vatican at the start of the synod, has said the statues represent Our Lady of the Amazon:
Click to expand...
I think that Fr. Rojas made a mistake in calling those statues “Our Lady of the Amazon.” As MagdalenaRita said in an earlier post (Post #596), there is already an “Our Lady of the Amazon,” and it wasn’t naked. (Please check it out.) The painting is actually very beautiful and I love it. If that was the one they used in the opening ceremony, there would have been less controversy and probably no “theft.”
 
Rubee said:
All the contradictions seem to be trickling from those who think anything the pope does, allows, condones, or says, is the Catholic magisterium. That attitude in itself contradicts the magisterium.
Click to expand...
While this is true, we must be wary of the opposite extreme where everything the pope says and does warrants suspicion and ridicule. It’s tempting to make a devil of the pope as much as an idol. God knows the pope is a sinner like all of us, who makes mistakes, and struggles as we all do to live as Christ commanded. All the same, we are obliged to be loyal and obedient to the pope, and give our faith in his teaching as Christ’s appointed servant on earth.
 
Last edited:
RogueSemicolon said:
While this is true, we must be wary of the opposite extreme where everything the pope says and does warrants suspicion and ridicule. It’s tempting to make a devil of the pope as much as an idol. God knows the pope is a sinner like all of us, who makes mistakes, and struggles as we all do to live as Christ commanded. All the same, we are obliged to be loyal and obedient to the pope, and give our faith in his teaching as Christ’s appointed servant on earth.
Click to expand...
From what I have seen, only confusing decisions and actions by the pope lead to these suspicions. People feel the need to highlight the problematic nature of these decisions precisely because they are by/from the pope and his office has a supersized influence and importance, for good or ill.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, but what about this then:
Blimp said:
Catholic News Agency

Vatican communications official: Carved figure at Amazon synod not Virgin Mary​

Fr. Giacomo Costa, a communications official for the Amazon synod, said Wednesday a wooden figure of a nude pregnant woman, which has been present at events related to the synod, is not the Virgin Mary, but is instead a female figure representing…
^^^(from this article) “ It is not the Virgin Mary, who said it is the Virgin Mary?” said Fr. Giacomo Costa, a communications official for the Amazon synod, Oct. 16 at a press conference for the Amazon synod, a meeting taking place in the Vatican Oct. 6-27 on the ministry of the Church in the region.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Seems like damage control to me, to claim she’s the virgin. What was that ceremony about? With the offerings of fruit, incense, and full prostrations?
 
rom said:
think that Fr. Rojas made a mistake in calling those statues “Our Lady of the Amazon.” As MagdalenaRita said in an earlier post (Post #596), there is already an “Our Lady of the Amazon,” and it wasn’t naked. (Please check it out.) The painting is actually very beautiful and I love it. If that was the one they used in the opening ceremony, there would have been less controversy and probably no “theft.”
Click to expand...
I have seen the image, and, it is, indeed, beautiful. My guess is that the simplicity of the wood carvings reflects the artistic skill and sensibility of those who made them, inspired by their faith and culture, which I can only presume on the word of the missionary father and the people who attended the Vatican Garden ceremony includes a devotion to Our Lady of the Amazon. The painting was done by a young artist named Lara Denys as part of a Vatican-approved contest in 2011 and seems like it’d be difficult to replicate as a carving.

Vatican synod officials, alas, have been woefully inadequate in educating to the public what all these cultural and spiritual artifacts and rituals mean to the Amazonians, causing greater confusion than clarity and seeming to contradict the event organizer whose experience should afford the greatest understanding.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top